Colour Me In
by Miss.Mil
Summary: A series of loosely connected one-shots based on colours. Written as the muse strikes.
1. Red

_It's been a while since my last story, I apologise. For those who asked, there is a second chapter in the works for 'All Over You'. In the mean time, the following will be a set of loosely connected one-shots based on colours as the muse strikes. Sam and Jack, of course!_

 _Disclaimer: Not my sandbox._

 _ **RED:** Red is the color of energy, passion, action, ambition and determination. It is also the color of anger and sexual passion_

* * *

 **Red**

Red was the colour of romance. Most men felt that red looked attractive on any woman; a slinky red dress the promise of what was to come. Jack had never associated red with romance, and he was really beginning to hate red on this particular woman. There was so much blood, but then again head wounds really did bleed a lot. He pressed his palm further into her matted hair, stemming the flow as best he could.

'Come on Carter…'

She didn't move. The red stood bright in contrast to the dark of the cave they were now trapped in. Her blonde hair was dull and dirty.

The red trickled down her all too-pale face and began to pool on the dirt floor, turning a muddy, deep red. The red seeped over his fingers, colouring his tanned hand.

She groaned. 'Carter,' he started, holding her shoulder with his free hand. 'Try not to move.'

With a flick of his wrist, he discarded the red gauze for a fresh piece of white, pressing it gently to her head. He sighed; at least a conscious Carter was better than an unconscious one.

She raised her eyes to look at him squarely, the red framing one side of her face. 'What happened?' she murmured.

'You made friends with the rocks Carter, and they knocked you out for your trouble.'

He tried to joke, but it sounded weak even to his own ears. She nodded and closed her eyes, understanding him anyway.

Daniel and Teal'c were on their way with help. He could hear the faint sounds of them moving rocks near the entrance. It had been one hell of a month for SG-1. And now he has nothing to do but sit back and wait, staring at the red splashes on his hands, arms and his on second.

Red was the colour of war. Jack had seen too many dead soldiers in his lifetime to ever equate the colour with something else. He had always steered Sara away from wearing red. The colour brought him nothing but chills. Khaki green mixed with red was a terrible colour.

Although in a moment of clarity he remembers a red turtleneck jumper worn by the blonde in his arms just a few weeks ago. That wasn't a bad red; that was a red full of unspoken promises and feelings. Red with tantalising black leather was an intoxicating combination.

When he thinks of it like that, red brings forth a whole world of possibilities. Red represents the days before all hell broke loose, the days before the world knew of his feelings, and the days before he knew for certain those feelings were returned.

A sound stirs him from the memory, and he sees Daniel and Teal'c emerge from the entrance to the cave. Dust covers them both but he has never been so glad to see them. Carter is carried by Teal'c back to the Stargate and in the cold light of day; the red is so much more than a stark contrast of blonde to crimson.

The petite doctor is attentive as soon as the team step out of the event horizon, and Carter is off on a gurney. Her limp hand trailing tells Jack she is unconscious again.

A quick word to General Hammond and Jack has never run so fast to the showers in his life. He stares with morbid fascination as the red turns to pale pinkish hues, mixing with the water as it swirls away down the drain and off his body. He blinks in the water, the stream temporarily blinding him as it seeps into his eyes.

It's a few hours later and Jack finds himself in the infirmary, staring with intense focus on his second as she sits on the edge of the hospital bed. The red of gone; a bright white bandage covering the left side of her head. Jack thinks quietly that the white is a colour that suits her much better than the red at that moment.

With amazing clarity, he realises that the red from the turtleneck jumper has reappeared, minus the black leather jacket. The blonde hair is now tucked back behind her ears, the ends curling loosely around the top of the collar. He wonders briefly when she decided to let her hair grow so long. Somehow it suits her.

'Ready?' she looks up at him with a mighty smile.

'Lead the way,' he answers, tossing the keys loosely in his hand. There were some perks to being the boss. Driving your second home was one of them.

She tucks herself up in the passenger seat of his truck, the cool air fogging the windows almost instantly. By the time he has adjusted the heater, she is already asleep.

The red of her jumper stands out so brightly in the dark of his truck. The colour is almost soothing to him; a huge contrast to just hours ago in the cave of a foreign planet where the rocks apparently hated blonde Majors. The sleeves of the jumper are pulled just a little bit long, covering her fingers in a way that highlight her youth and vulnerability in sleep.

He is out the front of her house soon enough, the cold night air settling around them in an almost eerie way. Jack half expects her to wake at the sudden silence, but she doesn't move. In a way that he knows he shouldn't, Jack notices how her lips are red, most likely from the windburn earlier in the day. But somehow they make him realise that no matter how hard he tried to deny it, his second is a woman.

And an attractive one at that.

In the cold, dark light of the cab, Jack O'Neill suddenly comes to the realisation that maybe the colour red is not so bad and that somewhere, in some distant hopeful future, he wouldn't say no to Carter wearing a slinky red dress.

Fin.


	2. Yellow

_And we have moved on to Yellow! Originally the next one was going to be blue, but I really wasn't happy with it and so yellow emerged instead. Who can forget that yellow jumper in 'Window of Opportunity'?_

 _ **Yellow:** With the meaning of colours, in colour psychology, yellow is the colour of the mind and the intellect. It is optimistic and cheerful. However it can also suggest impatience, criticism and cowardice._

* * *

Every time Jack O'Neill walks past that yellow jumper, he grins like a teenage boy coming home from his first date. It hangs on the back of his bedroom door, the place of pride within his home hidden from the world.

He will stare at the jumper with hungry eyes on the rare nights spent in his own bed, content to let the memories wash over him.

The jumper hasn't been worn since that day, years ago in that damn time loop.

He still can't bring himself to wear it again. It smells too much like her.

And he never wants to lose that.

That daffodil-yellow jumper reminds him of the first time he really kisses Samantha Carter; alien influences aside.

Jack can't ever forget that first time, the way she held on to him and kissed him back. He replays that moment in his mind over and over, a feeling of warmth settling through him combined with contentment.

It was the colour of hope, a small glimpse in to a future where they could finally be together.

He has never admitted to Carter what had happened in the time loop, but he could pin-point the exact moment she had figured it out. It was a few weeks later as they were strolling through the grasslands of another planet when she looked at him with startling clarity on her face.

He'd stopped and swallowed thickly. A few seconds passed before she'd grinned slightly, a small blush creeping up her neck as she kept walking on ahead of him, shaking her head with a small laugh.

He had breathed a small sigh of relief at that moment, smirking as he cleared the thoughts of an irate Carter coming at him with a 9mm for what he had done. Although in some small part of his brain, Carter with a gun is a complete turn-on.

Somehow he was comforted by the thought that maybe she would do the same thing if the roles had been reversed. Though in his mind she was wearing only the yellow jumper, and it was as far away from the control room and other Air Force officers as they could get.

It has never been a favourite colour of his, yellow. But in that moment, yellow became a close contender at the top of his list thanks to the jumper and the memories it held.

Yellow reminded him of them; Sam and Jack. Not Colonel and Major.

It was the colour of the kitchen she had said she'd always wanted, and sometimes, just sometimes he allowed himself to indulge in that fantasy. Over the years, building the world that she had given him insight to; little comments made around the campfires of alien planets in the years they served together.

Samantha the woman was yellow. Bright, cheery and full of hope in a world that usually had none. The yellow rays of the sun radiated off her in a way that made her angelic, highlighting the brilliant shade of her hair that spoke volumes about her intelligence.

Yellow was the colour of the coffee mug she kept at his place, long forgotten at the back of a cupboard. He found himself drinking from that particular cup sometimes, when he needed to feel close to her.

It was his go-to after a hard mission or a time when he nearly lost her.

And there were so many of those.

He knows he should give it back one day, her favourite mug. But for the moment it's his reminder of the woman behind the soldier's uniform. And it sits squarely in his heart next to the yellow jumper.

The way she smiled reminded him of yellow. It was a bright and cheerful spring day, the warmth of the sun seeping through his bones all in the way she lifted the corner of her mouth and said the one word that meant so much.

'Sir.'

He would never admit that he makes an ass of himself just to see that smile.

Yellow reminded him of her.

It was happy, and full of promises.

It dragged him from the darkness that threatened to consume him.

Fin.


	3. Brown

_Another addition to the 'Colours' Series. This time, we are a go for Brown._

 _TAG to S10_E12 '_ Line in the Sand _'._

 _ **BROWN** :The colour brown is a friendly yet serious, down-to-earth colour that relates to security, protection, comfort and material wealth._

* * *

 **Brown**

Brown was the colour of the casket he saw in his nightmares.

Smooth, polished oak topped with the Nation's flag as it was carried along the perfect lawn of Arlington.

Brown was the colour of unseen horrors in a world where Carter no longer existed. She was laid to rest inside the gleaming casket, never to return to him in a world he didn't even want to think about.

It was the colour of the earth she was buried beneath and the colour of his hands as he threw a handful of soil on top of her polished casket.

Brown haunted his dreams.

He sees it everywhere, surrounding him each night before he falls asleep, his mind refusing to let the wicked thoughts go. Brown to him was more frightening than black.

For a world with blackness is one he can survive in, but one filled with brown, oak-coloured coffins he knows would destroy him before the day was out.

He stares at her silently, unblinking as if he is afraid she will disappear. The dull light from the infirmary avoids his face, the shadows reflecting his inner turmoil. The relief that the umber-coloured world is not claiming him just yet is sitting high in his chest, heart thudding along with the beeping of the monitor beside him.

It's only now that Jack fully understands the terror that Sara experienced each time he came back from a mission injured or presumed dead. Although in hindsight he acknowledges that maybe it was better that way, not knowing what your partner was getting into every time they walked out the door.

The terror is so real; the threat that she will not come back on her own two legs but rather in that horrible, burnt sienna coloured casket is all too real. He didn't want to be the one left behind.

She stirred from under the white sheets.

'Carter,' he spoke softly, unsure if she really is waking.

Her head rolled over to look at him, crystal blue eyes watery and unfocused.

'Jack.'

His name had never sounded any better than when it came from her.

'That bad?'

The two words were exactly what he doesn't need to hear. It had been that close that he had jumped on the first plane he could get out of DC and he wasn't leaving until she was able to walk herself out of here.

He nodded roughly, flicking a piece of invisible lint from his pants.

God, he didn't do this well. He'd give anything to trade places with her.

'Heard one of the Ori soldiers decided he didn't like your outfit. Decided he should blast a hole in the side of it,' Jack muttered gruffly.

'Knew I should have worn the blue that day,' she quipped, the words falling softly from her pale lips.

Jack smiled tightly.

'You didn't need to come,' she whispered.

He didn't need to tell her that there was not a chance in hell he'd wait by the phone at a desk in DC, hoping someone would call. He'd never let himself dwell on the thought that his desk is also that haunting brown.

'Well I guess the cat's outta the bag now,' he spoke, folding his fingers around his own wrist, rubbing mindlessly at something that wasn't really there.

She gave him a look that told him she thought he'd completely lost it.

It was the most known secret on the base.

Colonel Carter was strictly off-limits to anyone other than a certain General residing in DC.

He watched as she moved stiffly, a grimace marring her delicate features as she struggled to move without pain.

He didn't need to tell her how bad it was. How close it was, or how very real the nightmares were becoming.

One day she was going to come back through that gate in brown.

Mitchell had warned him about the letters.

He could have guessed the password if he'd tried hard enough. But chances were he would never be able to bring himself to read it.

Somehow, Carter knews this. That the letter to him would be buried alongside her in that horrible brown-coloured casket. Unopened.

A part of him often wondered if she'd even bother to write him a goodbye letter. In his mind it seemed way to macabre for her.

'You should be more careful out there, Carter,' he said, his hands folded stoically in his lap.

'Didn't have you to watch my back, General,' she smiled.

The remark was meant to be light-hearted, but it hit him in all the right places.

It _wouldn't_ have happened if he wasn't stuck behind his horrible oak desk.

If there was one thing in all the world he was good at, it was watching Carter's behind.

She could see the worry in his eye, and reached out slowly to take his hand.

He squeezed her hand lightly, avoiding the IV line in the back of her wrist.

'What are these?' he asked curiously, flicking his head toward a paper bag on the edge of the table.

She smiled softly. 'Macaroons.'

'Ah.'

He wanted to say so much more to her, to tell her that she frightened him more today than ever before. That he is getting too old, and too sick of dreaming of a brown, deathly coloured world to do this anymore.

Retirement was looking pretty darn good.

Carter would be okay.

They would be fine.

And she was going to keep going through the Stargate, doing her job, whilst he would return to D.C., his awful coloured maple desk and his scratchy dress uniform to do his job as well.

But every night before he tried to sleep, he'd pray to whatever god – false or not - was out there that he never, ever would have to live through the day he carried that polished oak casket down the glistening green lawns of Arlington.

Fin.


End file.
